The Most Beautiful Woman in Town Read online

  I’m not people — I’m Kid Stardust.

  o.k., kid, he laughed, we’ll put you to WORK!

  I didn’t like the way he said it.

  2 days later I walked through the passgate into the wooden shack where I showed an old man my slip with my name on it: Henry Charles Bukowski, Jr., and he sent me on to the loading dock — I was to see Thurman. I walked on over. there were a row of men sitting on a wooden bench and they looked at me as if I were a homosexual or a basket case.

  I looked at them with what I imagined to be easy disdain and drawled in my best back-alley fashion:

  where’s Thurman. I’m supposed to see tha guy.

  somebody pointed.

  Thurman?

  yeah?

  I’m workin’ for ya.

  yeah?

  yeah.

  he looked at me.

  where’s yor boots?

  boots?

  got none, I said.

  he reached under the bench and handed me a pair. an old hardened stiff pair. I put them on. same old story: 3 sizes too small. my toes were crushed and bending under.

  then he gave me a bloody smock and a tin helmet. I stood there while he lit a cigarette, or as the English might say: while he lighted his cigarette. he threw away the match with a calm and manly flourish.

  come on.

  they were all Negroes and when I walked up they looked at me as if they were Black Muslims. I was nearly six feet but they were all taller than I, and if not taller then 2 or 3 times as wide.

  Charley! Thurman hollered.

  Charley, I thought. Charley, just like me. that’s nice.

  I was already sweating under the tin helmet.

  put ’im to WORK!!

  jesus christ o jesus christ. what ever happened to the sweet and easy nights? why doesn’t this happen to Walter Winchell who believes in the American Way? wasn’t I one of the most brilliant students in Anthropology? what happened?

  Charley took me over and stood me in front of an empty truck a half block long that stood in the dock.

  wait here.

  then several of the Black Muslims came running up with wheel-barrows painted a scabby and lumpy white, like white was mixed in with henshit. and each wheel-barrow was loaded with mounds of hams that floated in a thin and watery blood. no, they didn’t float in the blood, they sat in it, like lead, like cannonballs, like death.

  one of the boys jumped into the truck behind me and the other began throwing the hams at me and I caught them and threw them to the guy behind me who turned and threw the ham into the back of the truck. the hams came fast FAST and they were heavy and they got heavier. as soon as I threw one ham and turned another was already on the way to me through the air. I knew that they were trying to break me. I was soon sweating sweating as if faucets had been turned loose, and my back ached, my wrists ached, my arms hurt, everything hurt and was down to the last impossible ounce of limp energy. I could barely see, barely summon myself to catch one more ham and throw it, one more ham and throw it. I was splashed in blood and kept getting the soft dead heavy FLUMP in my hands, the ham giving a little like a woman’s butt, and I’m too weak to talk and say, hey, what the HELL’S the matter with you guys? the hams are coming and I am spinning, nailed, like a man on a cross under a tin helmet, and they keep running up barrows full of hams hams hams and at last they are all empty, and I stand there swaying and breathing the yellow electric light. it was night in hell. well, I always liked night work.

  come on!

  they took me into another room. up in the air through a large entrance high in the far wall one half a steer, or it might have been a whole one, yes, they were whole steers, thinking of it, all four legs, and one of them came out of the hole on a hook, having just been murdered, and the steer stopped right over me, it hung right over me there on that hook.

  they’ve just killed it, I thought, they’ve killed the damn thing. how can they tell a man from a steer? how do they know that I am not a steer?

  ALL RIGHT — SWING IT!

  swing it?

  that’s right — DANCE WITH IT!

  what?

  o for Christ’s sake! GEORGE come here!

  George got under the dead steer. he grabbed it. ONE. he ran forward. TWO. he ran backwards. THREE. he ran far forward. the steer was almost parallel to the ground. somebody hit a button and he had it. he had it for the meatmarkets of the world. he had it for the gossiping cranky well-rested stupid housewives of the world at 2 o’clock in the afternoon in their housesmocks, dragging red-stained cigarettes and feeling almost nothing.

  they put me under the next steer.

  ONE.

  TWO.

  THREE.

  I had it. its dead bones against my living bones, its dead flesh against my living flesh, and the bone and the weight cut in, I thought of operas by Wagner, I thought of cold beer, I thought of sexy cunt sitting across from me on a couch with her legs crossed high and I have a drink in my hand and am slowly and surely talking my way toward and into the blank mind of her body, and Charley hollered HANG HER IN THE TRUCK!

  I walked toward the truck. out of the shame of defeat taught me in American schoolyards as a boy I knew that I must not drop the steer to the ground because this would show that I was a coward and not a man and that I didn’t therefore deserve much, just sneers and laughs and beatings, you had to be a winner in America, there wasn’t any way out, and you had to learn to fight for nothing, don’t question, and besides if I dropped the steer I might have to pick it up. besides it will get dirty. I don’t want it to get dirty, or rather — they don’t want it to get dirty.

  I walked it into the truck.

  HANG IT!

  the hook which hung from the roof was dull as a man’s thumb without a fingernail. you let the bottom of the steer slide back and went for the top, you poked the top part against the hook again and again but the hook would not go through. MOTHER ASS!!! it was all gristle and fat, tough, tough.

  COME ON! COME ON!

  I gave it my last reserve and the hook came through, it was a beautiful sight, a miracle, that hook coming through, that steer hanging there by itself completely off my shoulder, hanging for the housedresses and butchershop gossip.

  MOVE ON!

  a 285 pound Negro, insolent, sharp, cool, murderous, walked in, hung his meat with a snap, looked down at me.

  we stays in line here!

  o.k., ace.

  I walked on in front of him. another steer was waiting for me. each time I loaded one I was sure that was the last one I could handle but I kept saying

  one more

  just one more

  then I

  quit.

  fuck it.

  they were waiting for me to quit, I could see the eyes, the smiles when they thought I wasn’t looking. I didn’t want to give them victory. I went for another steer. the player one last lunge of the big-time washed-up player I went for the meat.

  2 hours went on then somebody hollered BREAK.

  I had made it. a ten minute rest, some coffee, and they’d never make me quit. I walked out behind them toward a lunch wagon that had drawn up. I could see the steam rising in the night from the coffee; I could see the doughnuts and cigarettes and coffee-cakes and sandwiches under the electric lights.

  HEY, YOU!

  it was Charley. Charley like me.

  yeah, Charley?

  before you take your break, get in that truck and move it out and over to stall 18.

  it was the truck we had just loaded, the one half a block long. stall 18 was across the yard.

  I managed to open the door and get up inside the cab. it had a soft leather seat and the seat felt so good that I knew if I didn’t fight it I would soon be asleep. I wasn’t a truck driver. I looked down and it looked like a half-dozen gear shifts, brakes, pedals and so forth. I turned the key and managed to start the engine. I played with pedals and gear shifts until the truck started to roll and then I drove it across the yard to stall 18, t
hinking all the while — by the time I get back the lunch-wagon will be gone. this was tragedy to me, real tragedy. I parked the truck, cut the engine and sat there a minute feeling the soft goodness of that leather seat. then I opened the door and got out. I missed the step or whatever was supposed to be there and I fell to the ground in my bloody smock and christ tin helmet like a man shot. It didn’t hurt, I didn’t feel it. I got up just in time to see the lunch-wagon driving off through the gate and on down the street. I saw them walking back in toward the dock laughing and lighting cigarettes.

  I took off my boots, I took off my smock, I took off my tin helmet and walked to the shack at the yard entrance. I threw the smock, helmet and boots across the counter. the old man looked at me:

  what? you quittin’ this GOOD job?

  tell ’em to mail me my check for 2 hours or tell ’em to stick it up their ass, I don’t give a damn!

  I walked out. I walked across the street to a Mexican bar and drank a beer and then got a bus to my place. the American schoolyard had beat me again.

  LIFE IN A TEXAS WHOREHOUSE

  I got off the bus in this place in Texas and it was cold and I was constipated, and you never can tell, it was a very large room, clean, for only $5 a week, and there was a fireplace, and I’d just gotten off my clothes when this old black guy ran into the room and started poking at the fireplace with this long poker. There wasn’t any wood in the fireplace and I wondered what he was doing there poking in the fireplace with the poker. Then he’d look at me, grab his pecker and make a sound like, “isssssss, isssssss!” And I thought, well, for some reason he thought I was a punk but since I wasn’t, I couldn’t help him. Well, I thought, it’s the world, that’s the way the world works. He circled around a few times with the poker, then left the room.

  Then, I climbed into bed. Riding busses always constipated me and also gave me insomnia, which I always had anyhow.

  So anyhow the black guy with the poker ran out the door and I stretched out in bed and thought, well, maybe I’ll be able to shit in a few days.

  The door opened again and here came in a rather well-enjoined creature, female, and she got down on her knees and began scrubbing the woodwork, and her ass just moved and moved and moved as she scrubbed the woodwork.

  “How about a nice girl?” she asked me.

  “No. Too damned tired. Just got off the bus. All I want to do is sleep.”

  “A good piece of ass would really help you sleep. Only $5 too.”

  “I’m too tired.”

  “It’s a nice clean girl.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I’m the girl.”

  She stood up and faced me.

  “Sorry, I’m just too tired, really.”

  “Only $2.”

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  She walked out. Then a few minutes later I heard this man’s voice.

  “Listen, you mean you couldn’t sell him any ass? We gave him our best room for only $5. You mean to say you couldn’t sell him any ass?”

  “Bruno, I tried! Honesta christ, Bruno, I tried!”

  “You filthy bitch!”

  I knew the sound. It wasn’t a slap. Most good pimps are worried about puffing up the face. They’ll slap on the cheek, down by the jaw, stay away from eye and mouth. Bruno must have had a large stable. It was definitely the sound of fists upon head. She screamed and hit the wall and brother Bruno got her another one coming off the wall. Between fists and wall she bounced and screamed and I stretched in bed and thought, well, sometimes life does get interesting, but I don’t quite want to hear all that. If I had known that was going to happen I would have let her have a little.

  Then I slept.

  In the morning I got up, dressed. Naturally I dressed. But I still couldn’t shit. So I walked out on the street and began looking for photography studios. I walked into the first one.

  “Yes, sir? Care to have your photo taken?”

  She was a fine-looking red head and smiled up at me.

  “With a face like mine, what would I want my photo taken for? I’m looking for Gloria Westhaven.”

  “I’m Gloria Westhaven,” she said, then crossed her legs and pulled her skirt back. I thought a man had to die to get to heaven.

  “What’s the matter with you?” I asked her. “You’re not Gloria Westhaven. I met Gloria Westhaven on a bus from Los Angeles.”

  “What’s she got?”

  “Well, I heard that her mother owned a photography studio. I’m trying to find her. Something happened on the bus.”

  “You mean that nothing happened on the bus.”

  “I met her. When she got off, she had tears in her eyes. I rode all the way into New Orleans, then got a bus back. No woman ever cried over me before.”

  “Maybe she was crying about something else.”

  “I thought so too until all the other passengers began cussing me.”

  “And all you know is that her mother owns a photography studio?”

  “That’s all I know.”

  “All right, listen, I know the editor of the leading newspaper in this town.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” I said, looking down at her legs.

  “O.k., leave me your name and where you’re staying. I’ll phone him the story only we’ll have to change it. You met on an airplane, you see? Love in the air. Now you’re separated and lost, you see? And you’ve flown all the way back from New Orleans and all you know is that her mother owns a photography studio. Got it? We’ll have it in M––––K––––’s column in tomorrow morning’s newspaper. O.k.?”

  “O.k.,” I said. I took one last look at those legs and walked out as she dialed the phone. Here I was in the 2nd or 3rd largest city in Texas and I owned the town. I walked down to the nearest bar …

  The place was quite full for that time of day. I sat down on the only empty stool. Well, no, there were two empty stools and one of them was on each side of this big guy. He was around 25, 6-4, a neat 270 pounds. I took one of the stools and ordered a beer. Drained the beer and ordered another one.

  “That’s the kind of drinking I like to see,” said the big guy. “These punks in here, they just come sit around and nurse a beer for hours. I like the way you handle yourself, stranger. Whatta ya do and where ya from?”

  “I don’t do nothin’,” I said, “and I’m from California.”

  “Got any ideas?”

  “No, none. Just floatin’ around.”

  I drank half of my second beer.

  “I like you stranger,” said the big guy, “so I’m going to confide in you. But I wanna say it real quiet, because even though I’m a big guy, I’m afraid we’re a bit outnumbered.”

  “Shoot,” I said, finishing my second beer.

  The big guy leaned close to my ear: “Texans stink,” he whispered.

  I looked around, then quietly nodded my head, Yes.

  When he had finished his swing I was under one of the tables the barmaid served at night. I crawled from under, wiped my mouth with a hanky, looked at the whole bar laughing, and walked out.…

  Back at the hotel I couldn’t gain entrance. There was a newspaper under the door and the door was open just a slit.

  “Hey, lemme in,” I said.

  “Who are you?” the guy asked.

  “I’m in 102. I paid a week’s rent here. Bukowski’s my name.”

  “You’re not wearin’ boots, are ya?”

  “Boots? What’s that?”

  “Rangers.”

  “Rangers? What’s that?”

  “Come on in,” he said .…

  I hadn’t been in my room about ten minutes and I was in bed with all this netting pulled around me. The whole of the bed — and it was a large one with a kind of roof — had all this netting around it. I pulled it all around the outsides and laid down in there with all this netting around me. It made me feel rather queer to do a thing like that, but the way things were going I felt I might as well feel like a queer as anything else. As i
f that weren’t bad enough, there was a key in the door and the door opened. This time it was a short and wide negress with a rather kind-looking face and a tremendously wide ass.

  And here was this big kind black girl pulling back my queernetting and saying, “Honey, it’s time for a change of sheets.”

  And I said, “But I just checked in yesterday.”

  “Honey, we don’t run our sheet-changing on your schedule. Now get your little pink ass out of there and lemme get my job done.”

  “Uh huh,” I said, and leaped out of bed, strictly naked. It didn’t seem to affect her.

  “You got a nice big bed here, honey,” she told me. “You got the best room and bed in this hotel.”

  “Guess I’m lucky.”

  She spread those sheets and showed me all that ass. She showed me all that ass and then turned and said, “O.k., honey, your sheets is done. Anything else?”

  “Well, I could use 12 or 15 quarts of beer.”

  “I’ll get them for you. Gotta have the money first.”

  I gave her the money and figured, well, there goes that. I pulled the netting queerly about me and decided to sleep it off. But the big black maid came back and I pulled the netting back and we sat there and talked and drank the beer.

  “Tell me about yourself,” I said.

  She laughed and did. Of course, she had not had an easy life. I don’t know how long we drank. Finally she climbed upon that bed and gave me one of the best fucks I ever had . ..

  I got up the next day and walked down the street and got the paper and there it was in the popular columnist’s column. My name was mentioned. Charles Bukowski, novelist, journalist, traveler. We had met in the air, the lovely lady and I. And she had landed in Texas and I had gone on to New Orleans to cover an assignment. But had flown back, the lovely lady imbedded in my mind. Only knowing her mother owned a photography studio.

  I went back to the hotel, got hold of a pint of whiskey and 5 or 6 quarts of beer, and I finally shit — what a joyful act! It might have been the column.

  I climbed back into the netting. Then the phone rang. It was the extension phone. I reached out and picked it up.

  “You have a call, Mr. Bukowski, from the editor of the –––––––––. Would you care to answer?”